Each time I speak to Kenny Dalglish over the telephone, he signs off in the same way. 'Hasta luego,' he says, whether he is on holiday in La Manga or at home in Southport, drawing the Spanish phrase out in contented Glaswegian so that it exudes peacefulness and rest. See you later.

Dalglish has earned his peace and he has earned his rest. They were strangers to him for a long time, sent into exile by the horror of the Hillsborough disaster in 1989 and by his unwavering determination to try to bring some measure of comfort and support and justice to the families of the 96 Liverpool fans who were killed in Sheffield.

But now, at last, he has them back. And if there is a terrible sadness at the heart of Kenny, the moving documentary film about his life that had its premiere last week, it remains a story about resilience and sacrifice and the triumph of family and how, for Dalglish, there was indeed a golden sky at the end of the storm.

Kenny Dalglish has earned his peace and rest after years of helping the Hillsborough cause

Dalglish is 66 now and he still snorts and harrumphs at thematic sweeps like that. If there were a title for defrocking pretension, he would win it every year. Maybe it is a protection mechanism too. It keeps questions that attempt to search out vulnerability at bay.

His humour is razor sharp but introspection has never been his thing, neither in public, nor in private. For a man like him, it feels too much like self-regard and he cannot abide self-regard. So we have to say it for him. By any measure, he is one of the giants of the British game. For many, because of all that he has done, he is one of football's greatest heroes.

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He has softer edges now than he once did but, as he sits in a quiet room at a Liverpool restaurant, he sighs impatiently when I mention that his wife, Marina, says in the film that Dalglish fell apart after Hillsborough and that he was difficult to live with as he tried to deal with the aftermath of the tragedy.

'Difficult to live with?' he says with the quizzical stare that is always the forerunner of amused disdain. 'For a very short period of time. Not difficult to live with, per se. Jesus Christ. I never noticed. But it must be true if Marina said it. I'm not going to start arguing with her as well.'

After an incredible playing career, Dalglish was manager of Liverpool when the tragedy struck

This is the Dalglish Code. All his favourite things are in that answer: sarcasm, querulousness and humour, self-deprecation, challenge, a horror of anyone feeling sorry for him, a tip of the cap to his wife, with whom he has formed a happy marriage of more than 42 years. Even conversation is a competition for Kenny.

But this time, at least, it is easy to crack the code. What Marina says in the film is true. Dalglish admitted that himself in the excellent autobiography he wrote with the journalist, Henry Winter, when he opened up for the first time about the pain of attending, on one occasion, four funerals in a day after Hillsborough and the physical and mental toll it took on him.

Hillsborough. It crouches there in the lee of the majesty of the Peak District like a demon in the midst of all the glories of Dalglish's playing and managerial careers. In the film, he is shown staring down at it from a vantage point on a hillside, the closest he can now bear to go to it. His daughter, the respected broadcaster Kelly Cates, says on screen he never dealt properly with Hillsborough.

I first met him at a post-match press conference at Anfield. He stood with his back to the wall, put his head down and answered questions staring at the floor. The trauma of the tragedy was still written large upon his face.

The club legend could only stand and watch on that fateful day in Sheffield on April 15, 1989

'The most important thing for me was to deal with what the families were going through,' he says when I ask him if Kelly was right. 'I dealt with that. If it meant I missed out myself, fine. I was the least important one anyway.

'If I never dealt with myself, that would not be unusual. I don't think that's abnormal. I was there to be of comfort or assistance or help or whatever we had to be and, whatever way the families wanted us to be, we were there.

Dalglish is keenly aware that the film suggests that in a different way to those who lost loved ones at Hillsborough, he, too, was a victim. He smiles at all 'the sympathy for the interviewee' he says he has been receiving.

He is also deeply wary of sentiments like that because he knows how much the families of those who died suffered and he thinks comparing his own ordeal with theirs is disrespectful. But when I ask if he and his family were damaged by Hillsborough, he does not demur.

A whole host of Liverpool stars past and present turned up for the film premiere on Merseyside

'I think it damaged everybody,' he says. 'As far as we were concerned, we were fortunate our damage was not as permanent as it was for the families. If we were damaged for a little bit, then fine. For the help that we gave to the people who most needed it at that time, it's a small price to pay.

'Have I recovered from it? I don't know. How would you know what you were going to be like? How would you know if you'd have been different? I just know if I've done a little bit to help them, it's a fraction of what they've done to help us. I'll be the one that's in the red.'

Dalglish was committed to the importance of the family long before Hillsborough, but the love and loyalty he witnessed from those who lost loved ones have helped him reflect on the love of his own children and the joy of his grandchildren.

Dalglish will forever go down as one of the finest players to have played for the club

The grief of those who lost sons or daughters or fathers or mothers or brothers or sisters at Hillsborough exacerbated his grief, but their strength and loyalty and dedication to those they lost and the victories they have won and the dignity they have shown, have helped him recover too.

'They have helped me because they led by example. If you want to speak to somebody about creating a family experience, a family way to behave and to support each other, they're the epitome of that,' says Dalglish. It is good to see the way he is now. The worry has left his face. He was touched by how meticulously Liverpool planned the ceremony to rename a stand after him at Anfield and how well they treated him and his family.

He is a non-executive director of the club he once graced as a player and manager. Of everyone I know in football, his loyalty to his club is unmatched. 'It's next to the family,' he says. 'Below family?' I ask him. 'Aye,' he says. He says he is babysitting the grandkids that night. His son, Paul, is visiting from Canada and the rest of the grown-ups are going out. I ask him if he feels he has had a happy life.

The strength and loyalty of the Hillsborough families in turn helped him deal with his own grief

'I hope so,' he says. 'It's not a rehearsal. I'm very happy with the hand I've been dealt. Every family has adversity somewhere along the line and it is easier to get through it if you have a strong family.

'I'm hugely proud of my kids and I have a fantastic wife who was the gaffer when it came to bringing them up and making them what they are today. She got a bit of a tough job with myself but she can't have everything.'

'Kenny' is currently in cinemas nationwide and released on DVD on November 20.